Three Pair
by rapid-apathy
Summary: Waiting for the rain to pass she speaks only to tell him, here at this little table in this crappy small room in the middle of the night that, he, Allen Walker, is as big of a loser as Marian Cross. Cross x Maria,Allen


It's something like three in the morning and he can't even remember how many times she's won now.

The odds of probability seem not to exist here. Surely once he should win; he has some advantage, not being dead and all.

She innocently shuffles and deals, cards face up.

Ace.

Ace.

Ace.

Ace.

Flawless.

Again.

Death is frustrating like that.

This started out as simple time killing, one of those things you do when you're trapped in a room with your master and his undead corpse bride. When it's raining outside and late, when you're hiding from people you may have inadvertently robbed. Open up cards and play go fish. Twenty one. One of those silly things.

Then he wanted to show her how good he was at cheating. He'd mastered the bottom deal. The sleight of hand. False shuffling. Second dealing. To pull any card you want, when you want. He wanted her to see.

He wanted to show his master, but he passed out three or so hours ago leaving the boy and the corpse to either watch the not so beautiful sight of intoxication lay there or sit and stare at each other.

Next to the bed is a small ancient coaching table with a pair of mismatched chairs they sat at waiting for nothing.

After sitting in silence for twenty minutes listening to nothing but the rain bouncing off the metal gutters and the occasional crackle of his master's lung, the boy had asked her if she knew how to play. If she knew how to play cards. She shrugged. He asked her if she wanted to play something, he could teach her, maybe, if she wanted him to. She just shrugged again.

Boredom happens. Even in death.

"I'll show you," he tells her, "How to deal from the bottom. Watch."

He does his little manipulation. So proud.

"Now you try, Maria."

And she grabs the deck and imitates the same move. Perfectly.

Now there is a silent contest of card manipulation mastery because apparently she just had to show him she was better. A master. Truly.

And one up him. Every. Goddamn. Time.

Death is frustrating like that.

So the boy takes a deep breath, relaxes his shoulders back and shuffles his best, one he knows no one can see, he'd practiced this at least hundreds of times in rooms just as smoky and stifling as this one. Easy. So he draws, so confidently, because he knows this will be the one and she's going to gasp while her nonexistent eyes will open wide at the surprise of his excellence. Death will be impressed.

Ace.

Ace.

Nine.

Two.

Damn.

Death leans back in her chair and sighs. Red stained glass wings mocking him.

"You're as bad as Marian."

And the boy is somewhat caught off guard.

To have such a vicious insult hurled at you like this so casually knocks your entire sense of reality out for a second.

So he looks at her.

Kind of stupid like.

"What?"

"You are as bad," Maria says, enunciating her words, slow and halting, like the kid is as stupid as he looks right now. "…as Marian."

And then she even points to the propped up red beast laying over in the bed he's a foot too tall for, with his big black hat covering his stupid face while he's sleeping.

Just to make sure this slow kid gets it.

"I heard that." The hat talks.

"Good." Death taunts.

The boy stands up to stretch and pull his hands through his ratty white hair.

"You're really good."

Slumping back in the chair he accepts his emasculation and tells her he gives up.

"For God's sake," the hat says. "You can't figure it out by now?"

Master Cross knows a lot of useful things. How to play cards well is not one of these things. So the boy says, "What?"

And tipping up his hat he says, "She's a fucking mind controller, you dumb little shit."

"Oh."

Oh.

Of course.

How stupid of him, didn't he know by now?

Master Cross knows all sorts of _useful_ _things_. Screwing people is his art, his skill. A true master of the medium.

Especially when it comes to his Maria. Like with his precious Maria, he can throw the boy out a window and not even be in the same room, or, with Maria, he says, he can make the clerk downstairs give the boy incorrect change. Like giving five hundred for a twenty incorrect. Only the beauty of it all is, is that the clerk will eventually count out his register and remember the little bastard kid upstairs who was the last customer. And the bastard kid doesn't know why he's getting his face slapped later that day until he starts hearing things like "owe" and "you fucking little thief". Then the bastard kid figures it out. A lot of confusing situations clarify when you start to understand sadism.

Master Cross knows useful methodology for all sorts of useful things.

Take the new Wife of the Month for example, the cash burdened, lonely property owner's wife. The one of the building the three of them are staying in at this moment. He can manage to relieve her of her burden, secure a place to sleep it off and tarnish the dignity of all parties involved within the course of maybe three hours.

These are useful skills.

Three hours is enough time just before she starts to sober up and Master Cross gets too drunk, the boy learns. Or passes out. Either way, he has to seal the deal within those three hours generally for a new Wife of the Month mark to be successful. If she's simply a Bang and Run, then it can be as little as twenty minutes.

Within these three hours, Master Cross is using his years of training in the art of petticoat baiting, while the boy pretends to be an anonymous little brat pick pocket to the husband outside to serve as a diversion. Now picture said boy, tattered hoods and scarves, running for his dear life down a dank cobbled street from a two hundred pound, faster than he looks, enraged Scot.

On the table, the cards are being shuffled. Master Cross sits up in the bed to watch, never one to miss a gamble. He lights a cigarette and motions for them to get on with it.

"My money is on Maria."

"Are you for serious?"

"Yeah, she's a sure thing."

"No. About the… mind controlling."

"Oh yeah."

OOOOOO

Wife of the Month covers shelter. Not missing an opportunity to exploit, Master Cross quickly discovered long ago that the only thing women love more than having a louse to debauch with, is having a savior complex for the pathetic little orphan boy that he drags around. That maternal fancy.

This enfeebled child.

"His parents abandoned him, the poor daft thing."

"He's just precious."

"Kid would be dead or in a sanitarium if it weren't for me. He's kind of an ingrate though, but what can I do?"

"You are truly a man of God to do such a thing with no wife to care for you both."

"I just did what was right."

When a bleeding heart Wife of the Month lasts for longer than average, God is to be thanked.

Wife of the Year is not too much further away in these situations, but far enough so as to never see Wife of the Month or any Bang and Runs. The most valued and rare of trophies to attain. The deepest notch in the post. Supplying more sustainable long term cash flow, although hesitant at times, for the novelty of insane men wears even the hardiest and hormonal of women down.

Prostitute of the Week is generally within short walking distance. She and the card tables are where this pyramid scheme market crashes, and the red ink flows.

And in the downed economy, the boy is off to find more work.

If you could reference _The Book of Cross_ (publish pending) you will understand the exact science and economics of this and all the useful things Master Cross knows. It can be proven with scientific certainty that using his techniques, he could talk the Queen of England into paying him for the honor of jerking him off. With tip. "No, no," she would say, waving her wrinkled cramped hand with dismissal at his rehearsed gratitude. "It was _my_ pleasure. Can I get you anything?" And then she'd even go so far as to wash his clothes and take care of this crazy bastard until she winds up in a tragic suicide.

The Queen herself would.

Simple recipe. Basic chemistry, really.

Just add miserable women. Just add church authoritarian symbols on sharp clothing. Just add alcohol.

Mix.

Splash Master Cross in and it's as fluid as a mathematical equation.

The part his tannin pickled brain can't seem to get right is a way to do all this without causing pain or humiliation for a certain young boy in his care. That part of his infinite wisdom seems to be absent.

To think, the Master of the Universe, who is red flush drunk or passed out half the time can manage to get it up enough to keep all his cash cows happy, yet has the time and mental fortitude to screw the boy's life by-proxy twice removed is a wonder of mankind in and of itself. So much screwing, so little time.

God's miracles must truly exist within an Exorcist. The boy wouldn't know since that whole Exorcist training thing has slipped Master Cross' mind. There could even be a Saint in the making; one all the Fathers will always ramble on about for the next million years. These miracles of man on earth. Blessed medals will be sold with his true name.

Saint Middle Aged Drunk.

Saint Syphilis.

Saint Screw Allen Walker.

He's sure they'll pick a good name.

OOOOOO

King.

Queen.

Jack.

Ten.

"Again," Master Cross says. "And don't lose this time or you can sleep outside."

"And how am I supposed to do that?"

Maria starts gathering and shuffling the cards.

"Maybe quit staring at her tits and pay attention."

"That's not the problem here, Master."

"Well," he says from under his big smoky brim, "well if you're being that stupid to play this long without even noticing her cheating you every single goddamn time, then you must be distracted by something."

This is what he tells him. That he's distracted by dead breasts. And then audacity over the limit says:

"Like student like master, eh Allen?"

More smoke fills the room.

Alright. Well.

He had looked a little.

How could he not, they're just… _there_.

Out there, screaming to be looked at. Black lace framed in sex. But that wasn't why he was losing.

Master Cross never quite explained how Maria worked. But the awkward topic of the specifics of having a busty corpse at his beckon call was typically met with a quick slap to the face.

He knew she could alter what people see, but… mind control? "Like real serious mind control?"

"Yeah, like real real."

Sometimes, he would see Master Cross laugh or smile for no apparent reason and thinks they must be 'talking' to each other.

Secret stories.

Inside jokes.

Probably at the boy's expense.

Oh God. Master Cross was spying on his mind.

"You're serious?"

Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

"The fuck I just tell you, idiot?"

Maybe, the boy thinks, it's okay, she is really controlling him. She will take over his mind one day, slowly chipping away at it. A part of a retroactive posthumous 'ha-ha you will pay' revenge fantasy the boy has. If only justice could time travel. He wouldn't have to look Death right in the breasts and she wouldn't have to be the Master's whatever. Two birds with one stone. Necromancy gone wrong. Black magick back fire. An on the job accident.

Saint Failure.

All the boy knows is this was a human being once and Master Cross did _something_ that the Church and God would not like. Manipulating living women was probably getting boring, so he started hustling the dead.

He's expanding. Plausible theory.

She can't really be a true to God mind controller. Those don't exist. But then neither did demons or undead corpses with fantastic racks.

Oh God.

One of those useful things Master Cross knows.

When the boy first saw her, he asked Master Cross what in the name of God happened to this poor woman.

He simply said, "Me."

Details were never his strong point.

He'd pry further, but trying to get answers from a dead woman is about as hard as you'd think. The boy figures she is just one of these desperate, lonely, cash burdened wives that can't let go of the Master of the Universe unto death.

Or he can't let go of her. Whoever the hell she is.

Death herself.

She rarely speaks to the boy ever, but the one time out of maybe two in his life, only to tell him, here at this little table in this crappy small room in the middle of the night that, he, Allen Walker, is as big of a loser as Marian Cross.

The boy doesn't like the word 'bitch' but if he did, that's what he would think.

This was ridiculous.

The boy gets up and heads for the door.

"Where are you going?"

"Sleeping outside."

"No, you're not. Get back in that chair."

Master Cross gets up and only need take two steps to cross the room and grab the sleeve of the boy's shirt, shoving him towards the table.

"Sit." He stands behind the boy, sitting him in the chair and smacks the back of his head. "You're a pain in the ass, you know that?"

"You're an idiot," he says. "Do you really think I bothered her to come out here and stay to entertain you?"

"But, I―"

"That's why you're an idiot." Master Cross leans over the boy, one hand on the table and one grasping the back collar of the boy's shirt and looks him in the face with that damn cigarette just about to burn a hole in the boy's eye and says, "How much do you think you can learn from playing those drunkards in a bar or alley? You think that because you can fool them you know what you're doing? You won't be a cute innocent looking brat forever, and you won't always be playing some ditch diggers on their third pint. You think she knows nothing, based on what? If there had been real money here, you would be broke and stripped naked."

The her being dead thing had been a factor in his assumption, but he knows better than to interrupt the master's rant.

The tight grip on the boy's shirt loosens and he pulls away, waiting for the inevitable blow to the head, but Master Cross has gone back to sit on the bed. Probably that post wake up nausea hitting about now.

This woman, he tells him, was a world class cheat. Bottom dealing? For kids and quick hitters. This woman, he tells him, hustled more money than the hardest working prostitute on her back, knees and elbows ever could have hoped out of men just with her fingertips and an innocent smile. This woman, he tells him, could outplay an amateur like him and be a hundred miles away before he could even admit to himself what had happened.

The boy finds himself in love with this woman if this story isn't so much a worst case scenario abstract example and is a real life first hand trauma Master Cross seems to be reliving.

Death is his hero.

"What are you smiling about?"

"He's not smiling," Maria says out of nowhere, flipping cards through her fingers. "You need glasses, Marian."

He really was smiling.

He squints and rubs his eye and is about to say something, then squints again, looking at the kid. "Yeah, yeah."

"You really do."

By now the boy is trying not to laugh while picturing his master left buck naked and broke, watching a certain one armed Russian beauty, black ribbons trailing behind her, totter off in the blurry distance with his money through that one old, near sighted eye.

Picking up and weight testing bottles on the floor trying to find one that isn't sucked dry, Master Cross goes, "You're both a pain in my ass."

OOOOOO

Any details of Master Cross' personal life he didn't really want to know even though nine times out of ten he seemed to get learned in against his will. Especially in the beginning when the boy didn't truly understand what fresh hell he had been dragged into.

Somewhere in between England and China. A bedroom. That's all he remembers. The other details over powered everything else and rooted in the recesses of his mind for what was surely the rest of his life - Pants slacked and unbuckled, shirtless, a giggling peach pink set of tits and blonde hair slung over his shoulder.

Think of that time you discovered that sex existed; only you still didn't know what the hell it was. The time when you realized your parents or those other asexual adults you looked up to were doing such disgustingly erotic things. Or when you discovered that women could really be that naked.

Walk in on that moment.

Allen.

God, was that a bottle of olive oil he was holding?

Allen!

Master Cross had spoken then exactly as Death did to the stupid kid at the table.

Yes?

Get the fuck out of here.

Okay.

Only for it to end with an auditory scarring of mind through flimsy hollow walls. And don't think Tim was any help. If you're under this impression this adorable little monster is an innocent bystander, think again. Thirty years with a certain person of ill repute has its effects.

One drunken night, Master Cross and Tim―or perhaps just Tim… or perhaps just Master Cross―thought it would be absolutely hilarious to intercut a video of Tim's from outside with one of himself. Not just himself though. And not just one with him and another person, but ones with him completely naked, cigarette still on his lip, straddled by a woman of amazing energy. The grainy image of a small brunette wearing his hat, and with her little tea cup breasts and her red painted mouth making incredibly graphic sounds cuts in for only a second but it's more than enough. He sees it. He _saw_ it.

And oh, you should have heard the laughter when confronted with this incident. Ah, sorry there, kiddo, he said laughing. When the boy didn't find it quite funny he said, Jesus Allen, grow up.

That's what he said. For him to grow up. You know. At age ten.

By the age of eleven, Allen Walker had inadvertently seen more forty year old ginger ass than any child on Earth ever should. And here at this table he's seen far too many cock teasingly low angles of Death's breasts than he sort of in confusing ways ever wanted to.

But instead of shuffling the cards, Death gets up and looks out the window. "The rain has stopped," she says.

"Finally," Master Cross says and walks out of the room assumingly to either puke or hopefully go to piss and pass out in the street. But about an hour later he returns looking a hundred times better, maybe except his one tired, red, bloodshot eye.

The boy gets up and backs towards the door, trying to preemptively block the swift kick in the ass his instincts have told him to expect by now. He manages to slip out without incident and hears the door click behind him.

There's a large keyhole in the door, those old ancient kinds that made you wonder why anyone even bothered since you could easily peep into a room or hear every little step, cough, grunt or groan with such a huge opening. Not that one should be peeping. He wasn't that kind of person, this is different. He just needs to know what they're saying about him. Perfectly normal and not invasive or creepy at all. Hey, you live with this maniac then you can judge.

The voices inside are frustratingly faint and drop out of range at times and crouching with his head wrenched to the side pushing his eye to the hole he can just see the bottom half of Master Cross walking across the room over to Death. Their sentences seem to drop out right at the most important part and he wonders why they can't talk louder.

"I'm sorry―here―."

"You always think―matters to me."

Through the keyhole the figures walk out of view for a moment and he hears a box open and the crinkle and scrunch of tissue paper and the smooth sound of ribbons being untied. The boy angles his head and catches view of the figures, Master Cross sitting on the edge of the bed, Death standing with her back to him. He sees his hands reach to her back and carefully pull the thick black ribbon through each rung down her back. He watches as the corset falls loose and as Master Cross stands up and reaches around her to unhook the front.

The boy didn't really know what to expect and even though he doesn't want to be _that_ weirdo kid and he should really look away―what does an animated corpse's body look like? Was she a skeleton underneath? Rotting away? Does she have some kind of zombie horror show going on under there? It wasn't like he was trying to get his jollies here, this was genuine scientific curiosity.

Master Cross's massive frame blocks all but a false arm, the slightest bit of hip and stained glass wings. Her dark red dress is taken off, piece by piece, endless layers of femininity peeled away until she is standing in nothing but a petticoat and sheer white under slip. Master Cross reaches in the box behind him on the bed for the briefest moment he sees her in the dim light giving away the mystery, pale grayish and translucent skin exposed for the one and only time he'd ever see. The boy was surprised to see that her waist was not naturally as pinched as it always is, but then he realized when one doesn't have to worry about breathing, the Master can lace that sucker as tight as he pleased. The day he spent working off Master Cross's night at the Fetish Club was making more sense.

Another corset is wrapped around her and sitting back down on the bed, he begins lacing her up, at one point using his foot on her back to pull it tight until she very clearly and loudly says, "Hey."

"Sorry, sorry."

"Not so hard, goddammit."

"Oh, you're dead get off it."

He continues to lace up until the silk and bone black corset has shaped her the way he likes. Then the layers are replaced, green lace, streamers of black ribbon and embroidered black roses; they all hang off her perfectly, beautifully.

Adjusting his angle he can see that she is smiling and she hugs and kisses him. Really kisses him. And the boy tries to not remember she's been dead probably longer than he's been alive. He watched them both move to the foot of the bed right in front of the door and they start to dance on the smallest amount of floor space.

The figures move in place, dancing slowly at first, their hands together, his arm around her back and hers around his. Their dance turns into rocking side to side, their positions to embracing. And with his cheek against the crown of her sateen ribbon hair the boy faintly hears him say, "Happy Valentine's Day, baby."

Even though Valentine's Day was two weeks ago. But oh, okay. That whole thing makes sense now.

OOOOOO

Come here, he told him reaching into his side pocket pulling out wadded receipts and papers and tobacco wrappers and God knows what. His cigarette dangled from his lip as he opened and shoved back in his pocket what he wasn't looking for until he found what he was. He handed it out to the boy and motioned for him to take it.

The boy walked over to his master sitting on the edge of a small bed in a hotel somewhere in France. He reached out and took the small piece of paper.

Can you read that?

Parts of it, I think.

Can you or not.

Not, not really. I'm sorry.

Ain't your fault you're stupid. Alright, he said taking a last pull on his cigarette and stamped it out in a glass ashtray on the small wooden table off to the side of the bed. Listen to me because I'm not repeating myself.

He told him he's to take that piece of paper to a store on La Carriere, it's got large wedding dresses and fabrics in the windows, he can't miss it. He's to give it to a man named Peter. Peter will then give him a box. He is not to open or touch what is inside the box. If he does, he will kill him. He is to then bring that box to him immediately. If he doesn't, he will also kill him.

You think you can handle that?

Of course! I will do my best.

I'm sure. Here, he said, sighing and reaching in his other pocket and pulling out a billfold. He started to count it out pulling each bill by the edges and squinted, then shook his head and raised his eyebrows and counted it again and then just handed the entire thing to the boy. This is all I got so if you need more, you're on your own.

Do I need to pay for the box?

He scratched his head and shrugged. I paid for most of it. That should cover the rest. Figure it out.

O-okay, right. The boy looked at the bill fold and then placed it in his pants pocket.

Wedding dresses in the windows. Is it a wedding dress in the box?

It's none of your business what's in the box, idiot.

Right, sorry. The boy picks up his jacket and slides his mittens on. Fabric?

The fuck did I just say?

I'm sorry, Master.

Just pick it up and bring it back, it's not that hard, Jesus.

I'll pick it up and I won't open it, I promise.

Go on then. Tired of lookin' at ya.

I'll hurry back.

Only he doesn't. One thing Master left out was Peter was owed two hundred as it was plus the remainder on the box was five and he had only given the boy four hundred. Peter also was not a fan of Master Cross. He was also surprisingly built for a tailor.

I swear to God if I see that son of a bitch, I will punch him in his big fucking red head and wait for the police to get him so help me God.

He kept saying over and over. Along those lines, anyway.

It took the boy five days to work off the remainder on the box, he found a small card room he played out back some of the kitchen staff, he did dishes and he helped Peter spool thread through horrifying needle stabbing devices with his smaller fit anywhere fingers. But on day six he was yanked out of his bed by his collar in the middle of the night by a towering figure in black with a glowing red eye and ridiculously large hat. Apparently he had gotten worried his pupil had not returned. Or more like enraged. Last he remembered was a blunt object making contact with his forehead.

When the boy came to, he found himself on the floor in a room with Master Cross sleeping on the bed. He never told Master Cross what happened with his friend Peter or what happened to the box, palpably feeling the rage emanating off of his Master, and neither one spoke of it afterwards.

OOOOOO

And watching them, maybe just in that moment, the boy felt sorry for his Master, as he'd never seen him look as he did there. Not a hustler, not an exorcist, not a drunk, not a raving angry mental case, but as a vulnerable human―a helpless child even. With that pain and longing clear on his face as day, one the boy knew all too well.

And the boy felt a strange sense of shame in seeing what he just witnessed, as if he had invaded upon such a private and tender scene and stolen something, although no one had seen him there, and he got up and stood by the door for just a moment and smiled to himself. Perhaps Master Cross wasn't a complete monster. Maybe only like eighty percent. He had to admit he liked seeing his Master happy, despite the pain it came from. He listened to the muffled voices for a second until they dropped off and there was nothing but silence from inside and then out of nowhere and so quickly he hadn't time to even blink, the entirety of the door came unhinged and came crashing down right on the boy's head, splintering into a million pieces around him. At least that's what he recalled before the blunt force trauma caused a slight case of blacking out.

When he came to, the boy found himself laying in a pile of garbage on the side of the building, his tattered clothes soaking wet with rain and mud and a crippling pain in his head. A note was pinned to his sleeve: _If you don't come back with at least three hundred, don't bother coming back at all you sick little fuck._

Well, that's the risk of spying on a psychotic manic depressive with a telekinetic witch at his disposal. The only question being did she notice first or did he. Maybe she really was a mind reader. Oh God.

At least he knows what's under the dress now. Does that level the playing field? Not by a goddamn long shot but the boy feels some false vindication and he'll be damned if he'll let that go. _I saw your dead girlfriend naked_, is all he can taunt in his mind and if Death always knows what is in our thoughts and desires, so be it.

The word 'avenger' isn't right, but it comes to mind.

And so the boy learned something that night. Other than learning a dead chick can outplay him at cards, and his Master is apparently a necrophilliac; he learned that even the most hardened jackass is probably that way for a reason. We all have our struggles and tragedies and perhaps Master Cross was no different. That even the craziest of guardians and disconnected emotionally distant authority figures are capable of tenderness. What the boy doesn't realize is that he feels a relief in knowing that maybe one day, the Master would accept him as more than something he got stuck with.

The boy managed to get himself up and wiped the mud down to be somewhat presentable and walked across the slick street to a bar to start his shift of peeling potatoes in the kitchen followed by hopefully winning some rounds of poker off of some whiskey soaked deck hands for the night. Three hundred wasn't so bad. And he'd only need to make four hundred to replace his ripped clothes and have a stitch or two put in his scalp.

All in all a rather tame and routine two weeks late Valentine's Day. And in a downed economy, the boy heads off to work.


End file.
